16 comments:

So am I reading this correctly? At the time of graduation, 60% of new chemistry PhDs who hadn't accepted a post doc position were seeking employment? That's disturbing. Even including the post docs, it's still almost 40%. The data on the nsf website lists the other physical sciences as well, which aren't great but are at least better than chemistry.

Weird, my boss told me the easiest way to graduate was to have a job/postdoc lined up. I admit to having attended a number of thesis defenses in the last couple of years where the graduate did not seem to have either one lined up already, though.

So out of 2700 new chemistry PhDs, 530 actually got a real job or at least a fulltime temp job? Sounds like getting a chemistry PhD a winning life strategy to me. We'll definitely need more of these STEM professionals in the future.

In my case it wasn't that I wasn't interested in opportunities abroad...it's just that adding visas into the equation seemed like one more complication to working out my and my husband's desire to both get postdocs in the same area.

In the future I would definitely be open to going abroad if it solves our "two body" problem. Conversely, if my husband weren't able to find suitable work/get an appropriate visa that would allow him to work (or vice versa), it would be a dealbreaker. But I would hazard a guess that my situation is analogous to many people's situation. Even those without a scientist partner tend to have partners with careers, and when you go abroad, it can be difficult for their partner to work. It's not all patriotism and attitudes about 'Murica--it's just life logistics.